Claimed By The Babymaker (Kyrzon Breeding Auction Book 2) Read online

  Claimed by the Babymaker

  Luna Voss

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Luna Voss

  Chapter One

  It’s hard to focus on work when I know what is going to happen to me tomorrow.

  I stare at the pieces of machinery in front of me on the grass. The components that will ultimately make up a solar panel stare back at me, almost mocking. I know that I need to assemble them, but right now, it’s hard to muster the will.

  How am I supposed to care about setting up a solar panel when tomorrow, I will be sold at auction to an alien warrior?

  Not just sold. Sold, mated, and bred.

  Although I’ve known since I was 13 years old that I was destined to be a Kyrzon Bride, it’s only over the last year or so, as I neared my 20th birthday, that it really started to feel real. That it really started to sink in. That I really came to terms with the fact that soon, I would be leaving my home in the human settlement of New Sutter forever.

  The thought fills me with dread.

  Not because I’m attached to my home in New Sutter, exactly. The truth is, living here isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. Life on Planet Kyrzon is difficult for humans, and filled with constant danger. In a sense, every day in Human Territory is a struggle for survival. Maintaining our existence as our settlement grows and our population expands takes a lot of work.

  Even for a Kyrzon Bride.

  The fact that my name was pulled out of the lottery when I was 13, designating me as a future mate to a Kyrzon warrior, hasn’t stopped me from being assigned to a series of jobs, the latest of which involves setting up solar panels at our brand-new energy farm outside the settlement. Usually, I don’t mind the work: New Sutter is a walled city, and having the chance to work in a fenced-in area outside the city walls is about as close to nature as I ever get. This planet is filled with all kinds of horrifying creatures that love to eat humans, and under any normal circumstances, traveling outside the settlement would be foolish, bordering on a death sentence. The fact that this job allows me to ride a hover-cart to work, and then spend the afternoon working outdoors in relative safety, is something that a couple years ago would have pleased me greatly.

  Now, though, all I can think about is one thing:

  Tomorrow I will be purchased by whichever heavily-muscled, seven-foot-tall Kyrzon pays the most for me.

  You want to know what a Kyrzon looks like? Take an ordinary human man. Make him a foot taller. Then blow up his muscles until they’re all gigantic and veiny, give him a thick brow, a strong jaw, and turn all his other masculine attributes up to maximum. Like a dude who hit puberty, and then his balls just kept dropping, until every inch of him was dripping with testosterone.

  Yeah. That’s the kind of alien I’m going to be sold to tomorrow.

  The Kyrzons absolutely terrify me. I’m pretty sure they terrify everyone. I don’t know how anyone could look at one of those enormous, jacked, quasi-human freaks and not be terrified. The last couple of nights, I’ve barely been able to sleep. I’ve been filled with anxiety about my impending Auction Day.

  “You doing okay over there, Lily?” asks a voice from behind me.

  I turn, and see Julia looking at me kindly. Julia is one of my coworkers at the solar farm. She’s a Kyrzon Bride as well, but a year younger than I am, meaning her Auction Day isn’t for another year.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I mumble, trying to refocus my attention on the components I need to assemble.

  I don’t think Julia knows it’s my Auction Day. She seems like a nice person, but we’ve have never really been close. Truthfully, I’m not close to anyone. I’ve always been a loner, and never had a lot of friends. When I was younger, the other girls at school would make fun of me for being a Kyrzon Bride. They’d tease me, calling me “breeder”, “Kyrzon slut”, names like that. It died down as we got older, but it always stuck with me, making it hard for me to want to make connections.

  “Are you sure?” says Julia, taking a step closer to me. “You can have a drink from my water bottle if you’re thirsty.”

  “I said I’m fine,” I snap, turning back to my work.

  Not in the mood. Leave me the fuck alone.

  Julia doesn’t say anything, just turns away and goes back to setting up her own solar panel. Immediately, I feel guilty. I may be in a shitty mood right now, but that isn’t her fault.

  “Hey,” I say, looking over at her. “Sorry about that. I’m just really not in a good place today.”

  She looks up from her work. “It’s okay,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. My best friend is being sold tomorrow, so I’m not really having the best day either.”

  I try to keep my face impassive, but it’s hard. And apparently I don’t do a very good job of it, because Julia’s shoulders slump and she reaches out to touch my arm.

  “Oh, no. Is someone you know being sold tomorrow, too?”

  I don’t say anything, just look down and shrug. Julia’s eyes widen with understanding.

  “I’m so sorry,” she tells me. “I’m a Bride too, so I sort of understand how you might be feeling. My Auction Day is in a year. You must be so nervous.”

  “‘Nervous’ is one word for it,” I say, lacking the vocabulary to describe the pit that’s been growing in my stomach for the last couple of weeks. “I always knew this day would come, but somehow, I was always able to just put off thinking about it until recently. It was always just… you know, theoretical. Or it felt like it.”

  Julia listens kindly, and I begin to cautiously lower the barriers that I usually keep up around other people. It feels good to talk about this with someone who can understand. I wish I had gotten to know Julia earlier.

  “How do you deal with it?” I ask. “Knowing that in a year, you’re going to be sold, I mean.”

  She shrugs. “How does anyone deal with it? I think we all just avoid thinking about it, until we can’t anymore. I know it’s going to happen, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. All I can do is just keep moving forward.”

  “Maybe I’ll run away,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  Julia exhales through her nose, the closest thing to a laugh that the situation calls for. We both know the idea of running away isn’t a serious suggestion, just gallows humor. A lone human woman wouldn’t last a day in the Kyrzon wilderness. A human man wouldn’t fare much better. This planet is deadly to our species.

  As if to underscore that fact, we hear a raptor howling in the distance. Another howl joins it, coming from the other direction, and soon, the air is filled with a cacophony of predators wailing, seemingly from the woods all around us. Both Julia and I glance around, nervous even though the solar plant is protected by a tall fence.

  “Maybe I’ll get eaten by a raptor, and I won’t have to worry about becoming an alien’s breeder,” I say wryly as the raptor calls start to die down.

  Julia smiles compass
ionately. “Hey, I’m getting drinks at the saloon tonight with my friend whose Auction Day it is tomorrow. You’d be welcome to join us. You know, like a last hurrah. Make some final memories before you leave Human Territory. Want to come along?”

  The night before an Auction Day, the saloon is always filled with Kyrzons. No thank you. Besides, I’m spending tonight with my mom and dad.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I need to say goodbye to my parents,” I tell her. “I’m going to have to pass. Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Yeah, any time,” she says, and then looks awkward at the obvious impossibility of her statement. “Well, you know, theoretically any time,” she amends herself. “I’m glad I got to talk to you today. I feel like we’ve been working together for ages, and we’ve never really gotten to know each other.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” I say darkly. “People like you and me don’t really exist, we just float through life until it’s time for us to be sent to the auction block.”

  Chapter Two

  “And remember, if you ever need to, you can punch him in the balls,” says my dad over dinner, pounding his fist on the table. “Even a Kyrzon is weak if you punch him in the balls.”

  “Thanks, dad,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  My dad’s been like this all week. All sorts of advice on how I, a small and not particularly fit human woman, can somehow incapacitate a Kyrzon warrior if I just apply the right technique.

  Real helpful, dad.

  My mom has been more down to earth. Her advice has mostly been geared toward building a healthy relationship with my soon-to-be Kyrzon mate. She actually pulled me aside before dinner, away from my dad, and told me very seriously that I should consider the power my body gives me over a man, and how to wield it to my benefit if necessary.

  …Yikes, right?

  “Always remember that communication is the most important thing in a relationship,” my mom tells me as she begins to clear up our plates after dinner.

  “And divide up the household chores evenly!” says my dad, helping my mom with the dishes.

  “I’ll make sure to punch my Kyrzon husband in the balls if he doesn’t help with the dishes,” I say, and we all laugh. The laughter dies down, and the three of us are left with the painful realization that this is our last chance to spend time together.

  Probably ever.

  We sit around the table talking for a while, reliving favorite memories, and then go out for a last walk around New Sutter together. The whole time we’re walking, I find myself fighting tears. New Sutter may not have always been the happiest place for me, but it’s home. I can’t imagine a life anywhere else.

  That night before bed, we say a tearful goodbye. I know that both of them will be seeing me off in the morning, but there won’t be time tomorrow for more than a quick hug. Reluctantly, and after several minutes of mutual sobbing, my mom and dad let go of me, and I go to my bedroom to sleep.

  I cuddle with my pillow under my covers, numb.

  This is the last time I’ll ever sleep in this bed.

  I have no idea where I will fall asleep next. Or what alien warrior will be lying beside me. I don’t even know if the Kyrzons sleep in beds. For all I know, they curl up right on the ground.

  It’s incredible how little humans know about the Kyrzons, considering our peoples’ have had this arrangement with each other for hundreds of years. For centuries, we’ve been sending them one in every ten of our women, and they’ve been breeding with us, and that’s been the end of it. Other than their visits to the saloon around Auction Days, there’s been no other cultural interchange to speak of.

  I think it might be this lack of knowledge that makes the situation I’m in so scary for me. I don’t know anything about Kyrzon customs, or what living in one of their tribes is like, or how they treat their women.

  All I know is that the Kyrzons I see around New Sutter are monstrously big, and they like to leer at me as though I’m a fresh piece of meat they want to consume.

  I suppress a shudder as I remember the lust in the eyes of the last Kyrzon to look at me. It happened on the night of the most recent Auction Day, maybe a month ago. I had been walking past the saloon just as he was leaving, a big brute with black hair and bulging muscles. For a moment, our eyes had met, and he had looked my body up and down. There had been pure hunger on his face. Pure, unadulterated, sexual hunger.

  Hunger for me.

  I had scurried past him, but the moment stuck with me. That night, unable to banish the image of his lustful gaze from my mind, I touched myself under my blankets, biting my lip to stop myself from crying out.

  I’ve done my best not to think about that memory. The idea that I would pleasure myself thinking about a Kyrzon is painfully embarrassing.

  No, that’s not what happened, I will myself to believe.

  I wasn’t thinking about the Kyrzon. Not really. It was just the idea of being wanted like that that turned me on. Going into my teenage years as a Kyrzon Bride, I didn’t get a lot of attention from boys. Nobody wanted to waste their time dating a breeder.

  No, what had appealed to me about that experience had been the attention, nothing more. It’s not like I’m attracted to Kyrzons, or anything. I mean, the very thought of having to mate with one of them is revolting to me.

  Unbidden, I feel a warmth spreading between my legs at the idea of mating with a Kyrzon. Instinctively, I reach down to put pressure on my clit, as I’ve done so many times in the past.

  What am I doing?

  I stop myself, disgusted.

  That is for fantasies that involve human men.

  I may be destined to be sold to the Kyrzons, but that doesn’t mean I need to let them invade my fantasies, as well.

  I ignore my arousal and do my best to fall asleep.

  I’m going to need all of my energy for tomorrow.

  Chapter Three

  I wake up the next morning to the sound of my mom knocking on my door. “Lily? The hover-cart to the auction is here!”

  I jump out of bed, feeling panicked. I had meant to get up earlier than this.

  “Are they here early?” I ask my mom as I emerge from my room, the one small bag of personal items I’m allowed to bring tucked under my arm. “I thought I would have more time.”

  “They’re here a little early, yes,” she confirms, her eyes swimming with tears. She pulls me into a hug, squeezing me for a long while without letting go.

  When she finally does, I see that my dad is standing by the door to our house, looking at me. I rush over to hug him, and I finally break down, sobbing into his chest.

  “I love you both so much,” I tell my parents, tears streaming down my face.

  “We love you too, honey,” says my dad, also crying.

  I hug both of my parents one last time, and then I’m out the door, wiping my tears on my sleeve.

  Waiting in front of our house is a hover-cart with four women my own age sitting in back. All of them look petrified, staring at their feet, one of them doing that nervous shaky-leg thing at a rapid pace.

  These must be the other Brides who are being sold today, I realize.

  The woman next to me nods as I sit down, but other than that, no one bothers to acknowledge me. I don’t find it rude. I appreciate being given space. I don’t think anybody is in the mood to talk today.

  “Our next stop is the auction house,” announces the driver of the hover-cart, a tall, stony-faced woman.

  I start to tremble as we ride to the auction house. I can’t help it. I’ve never felt anxiety like this before. The woman sitting next to me throws me a glance, but I can’t even bear to meet her eye. Silently, I reach out my hand, and she takes it. I keep squeezing her hand all the way until we reach the auction house.

  Finally, the cart slows to a stop, and my heart pounds as the other Brides and I get out.

  “This way,” says our driver, and she leads us to the building.

  I’ve never act
ually seen the auction house up close before. I, like most humans, tend to keep a respectful distance of at least a block or two when I’m walking in this part of the settlement. Only the people who work here, and the Kyrzons who come to bid, really know what goes on inside.

  Our driver takes us to a door on the other side of the auction house and knocks three times. A moment later, it opens, and a female auction worker appears.

  “This is the end of the road for me,” says our driver. “I wish you all happiness in your new lives.”

  As if.

  Our driver returns to the cart, and the new woman leads us into the auction house. She takes us down the hallway, and we follow her into a room that has chairs set up, rather like a classroom.

  “What you are about to do is both your sacred duty, and a great honor,” the auction worker says to us, standing at the front of the room. Her tone is practiced, as though she’s delivered these words hundreds of times before. “From the moment your name was drawn from the lottery, you knew your life would be different.”

  I would probably be rolling my eyes if I wasn’t so consumed with nervousness. I’ve been hearing this same damn speech over and over again ever since I was 13. I have a difficult path ahead of me, I’m going to be mated to an alien warrior, and I’m probably never coming back to New Sutter. Got it.

  “As a Kyrzon Bride, your path will be more difficult than most,” says the auction worker. “You will be sold to a warrior, or if you are lucky, a war chief. You will become his wife, and you will bear his children. You may not ever have a chance to return to Human Territory, or to the life that you have known.”